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Learn More about Funding Opportunities for Regional Innovation Initiatives

SSTI recently hosted a webinar with EDA and JPMorgan Chase featuring information for past, present and future applicants of EDA's Regional Innovation Strategies program and the Small Business Forward initiative. Full recording available.

Access the SSTI Webinar Library

SSTI’s monthly webinar series, Inspiring Thought, is an affordable way to stay on top of new ideas in encouraging economic growth. Miss a webinar? No problem. Past webinars are now available for purchase.

Between 1998 and 2010, impact investment funds outperformed funds of the same size, according to the Wall Street Journal. Impact-focused funds of $100 million or less posted a 9.5 percent pooled net internal rate of return, outperforming the 4.5 percent delivered by funds of the same size that were not focused on impact investments.

Now that many governors have signed spending bills and legislative sessions are drawing to a close, the SSTI Digest will check on the status of proposals related to the innovation economy, and examine the state of technology-based economic development funding in the states. This week, we review spending bills in Delaware, Hawaii, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

Total venture capital investment rose 95 percent in 20 of the world’s top startup ecosystems from 2013-2014, according to The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 – a 160-report from Compass, formerly Startup Genome. Compass researchers also found that the global startup ecosystem landscape is maturing rapidly with non-Silicon Valley ecosystems capturing 14 percent more of the exit value pie in three years (2012-2014). In 2014, non-Silicon Valley startup ecosystems captured 59 percent of the value of all startup exits, up from approximately 45 percent in 2012.

Vice President Joe Biden announced that the Research Foundation for the State University of New York will receive a $110 million federal grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to lead the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM-Photonics). The Department of Defense-funded grant will be supplemented by a $250 million investment from the state of New York with additional funding commitments from public and private partners expected to exceed $245 million over the next five years.

In FY 2013, the federal government obligated $25.9 billion for science and engineering research and development (S&E R&D) at colleges and universities, a decrease of $1.6 billion from FY 2012 (5.7 percent). Eight states (California, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Texas, North Carolina, and Illinois) each received more than $1 billion in funding during FY 2013, though each state also experienced a decrease from their FY 2012 total.

Located just a 20-minutes from New York City, Newark has long existed in the shadow of its much larger neighbor. Despite this, Newark’s downtown received an important boost to its innovation ecosystem this week with the announcement of Newark Venture Partners, a venture capital fund and accelerator.

On Wednesday, President Obama launched a new National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) by executive order. The multi-agency effort will seek partnerships with academia and industry to build high-performance computing systems capable of exascale processing and more than 10 times as fast as existing supercomputers.

SSTI

Since 1996, State Science & Technology Institute (SSTI) is the most comprehensive resource available for those involved in technology-based economic development, SSTI offers the services that are needed to help build tech-based economies.